He recalled that with the EU expansion the number of the member-states of this organisation will increase from 15 to 25, the population of the European Union will increase from 380 million to 450 million while the economic potential will increase by mere 5.5 per cent.
As the same time he stressed that Russia's trade with the European Union after its expansion which is to take place on May 1 this year will grow from 37 % to 51 %. "In absolute figures our trade turnover has the chance to exceed 100 billion euros a year, with a tangible favorable balance in favor of Russia," Chizhov said.
The deputy minister also noted that in the sphere of political interaction of Russia with the European Union "our positions coincide on many aspects." First of all this concerns new problems relating to new threats and challenges, as well as the problems of security and the building of the multipolar world ," the deputy minister said. Touching upon the issues of cooperation of the Russian-EU economic cooperation, Vladimir Chizhov noted the existence of such "objective factor as the unique economic mutual complementariness." He noted that the specific feature of our economic cooperation is a "highly advanced cooperation in the energy sphere'
